DNN Platform vs. Umbraco CMS

Well suited to large enterprise website or web application developments. Less well suited to smaller site which would be better catered for by something like Wordpress.

Incentivized

Umbraco is well suited for websites that are looking to do a wide range of activities that require complex technoligies. An example of this is a company with several different products or services. Umbraco would be overkill for simple sites that are mostly static. It is also difficult to find developers who have Umbraco experience, as it's market share is not all that high

Incentivized

• The core modules provide all of the basic content management functionality. You can drag and drop a Blog, Chat, Events, Gallery or versitile Text HTML module onto any page. Once you set a few properties you are up and running. And many of them provide a means of skinning them to match the look and feel of your website design.
• If the core modules don't meet your specific needs you can purchase additional modules from third party vendors. If you have some programming experience, you can even create your own custom modules. Christoc's DotNetNuke Module and Theme Development Template makes it easy to get started.
• One of the best things about DNN is that the page navigation and user management is already built in. It is complete with friendly URL rewriting and SEO features. DNN authentication can be integrated with Facebook, Google and other authentication providers.

Incentivized

• Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
• Doesn't require back-end programming.
• Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
• Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
• Fast.
• Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.

• Missing a tool to test for compliance (built in)
• All module developers should be held to a standard before being allowed to sell in the dnn store
• Confusion between dnn and evoq creates a lot of headaches for us

Incentivized

• Migration of data between servers. There are tools that you can pay for that help facilitate this, but like any CMS system, there are still some tricks to getting it to work correctly.
• Running as a Web Project instead of a Web Site. Umbraco does not run compiled code, but instead compiles it on the fly. I find this to cause some performance issues that would otherwise be resolved with a compiled code base.

Incentivized

Umbraco CMS effectively addresses enterprise content management needs. It's quite mature .NET based CMS, standing out as a leader among its competitors. Websites built with Umbraco are blazing fast. Extensive customization capabilities, and user-friendly content publishing interface makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking for a mature CMS solution.

Incentivized

Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.

Incentivized

Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow. The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).

Incentivized

Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.

Incentivized

Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.

Incentivized

Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.

Incentivized

DNN [Platform] is as good as any CMS platform out there today. It's easier to use than WordPress for sophisticated sites and even (once set up properly) for non-technical people to maintain. For novice users without support, it's probably not the ideal solution against WordPress or wix etc. WP has more modules and extensions available. Drupal is a nightmare to use. Sitecore is expensive.

Incentivized

We previously used WordPress, however this was not easy to use, it was a complicated system and was limited in what we could achieve, there was a big outlay in buying bolts on and ensuring the system was safe. We found we where spammed loads, we tried to make it work however after a year we decided to leave WordPress behind. The company did evaluated Adobe but the dev team decided that Umbraco was the best tool to meet our own needs.

Incentivized

Without significant development, the product does not scale well.

Incentivized

• The free version is certainly good for ROI, but the paid versions are expensively licensed.

Incentivized

• CMS is free
• Support form Umbraco HQ is not expensive, can include Courier or other functionality
• For most cases does not need back end developer
• For trained Umbraco developers (Razor coding, using admin tool), developing medium site, takes a few weeks max